Tabriz University of Medical Sciences Research and Development in Medical Education 2322-2719 7 1 2018 06 30 Developing and Preliminary Evaluation of a General Academic Course on Traffic Health and Safety 21 25 10.15171/rdme.2018.005 EN Homayoun Sadeghi-Bazargani Mohammad-Hossein Somi Mina Golestani Mousa Amiri Saeideh Ghaffarifar Saeid Aslanabadi Ali Taghizadieh Shahryar Behzad-Basirat Naser Mikaili Seyed Abdolreza Mortazavi-Tabatabaei Saeede Sheikhi Hamid Soori https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3775-1831 Davoud Khorasani_Zavareh https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6265-8148 Soheil Saadat Mashyaneh Haddadi Mohammad Asghari-Jafarabadi Hamid Allahverdipour Javad Babaeie Seyed Kazem Shakouri Ali Meshkini Fatemeh Bakhtari Zakieh Piri Leila Jahangiry Parvin Sarbakhsh Kavous Shahsavari Nia Gholam Hossein Safari https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3510-573X Mostafa Farahbakhsh https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5754-7750 Amir Mohammad Navali Abdolhassan Kazemi Saleh Heidarian Forouzan Rezapour-Shahkolahi Reza Hekmatshoar majid Fallahi Hasan Ghodsi Maryam Mazaheri https://orcid.org/orcid.org/0000-0001-9665-1104 Behzad Jafarinia Khalil Pourebrahim Sajjad Alihemmati Ali Ahmadian Ahad Safayi Farhad Torbati Malek Ghorban Niyati Mirbahador Yazdani Nooshin Hushian https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4651-1661 Fahimeh Bakhtyari https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2600-8380 Journal Article 10.15171/rdme.2018.005 2018 01 16 2018 05 06 Background: A Based on the World Health Organization’s reporting, over 1.25 million people die annually in traffic accidents worldwide. Traffic accidents are the ninth main cause of death worldwide, with an average age range of victims of 15 to 29. Broadly speaking, 90% of traffic accidents happen in the low and middle-income countries that comprise 82% of the global population, and these countries account for half of the world’s vehicles. One of the goals of the National Road Traffic Knowledge Development Trustee is to plan and implement training courses (content design, design and implementation and evaluation) for target groups. To achieve this goal and due to the lack of academic programs on traffic safety in Iran, a single-credit course, "Safety and Traffic," was developed to be run as a compulsory academic course in all universities across the country. Methods: This course was administered as a national pilot study in four phases and in 17 medical universities across the country. All experts and national authorities in the Ministry of Science and the Ministry of Health and Medical Education were requested to provide feedback. Afterwards, the results and comments were forwarded to the Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution for further investigation.Upon approval of the Council, the course will be implemented in all universities across the country. Results: Results from the pre-test showed that the level of students’ knowledge was low before attending the training courses. Surveys also revealed that the two items of "pedestrian safety" and "first aids in RTCs" were the most useful and applicable subjects. The percentage of wrong answers ranged from 61to 98%. Conclusion: Considering the importance of traffic accidents and people’s role in traffic-related issues, itseems that it is necessary to provide university courses for traffic safety education